Viewpoints

Like many people, I get breaking news email alerts from various media agencies, including CNN and the New York Times. Usually they’re sent out for appropriate events, such as when someone important dies or when a natural disaster or other public emergency occurs.

For George Souliotes, this 4th of July was an Independence Day like no other. It was his first full day of freedom, after 16 years behind bars in California for crimes he did not commit. Seventeen hundred miles away in Texas, Ed Graf spent his 4th of July in the same manner he has for the past 27 years—an innocent man confined in a state prison. His celebration of freedom will have to wait.

“Vision 21: Transforming Victim Services,” is a not only a sweeping, ambitious achievement but a call to action for the victim services field.

Only once before in our history (with OVC’s New Directions from the Field: Victims’ Rights and Services for the 21st Century in 1998) has the field so thoroughly assessed its status and recommended steps to advance its work. Vision 21 revisits the 1998 recommendations, evaluates our progress, and creates a detailed blueprint for transforming victim services in the decades ahead.

As the One Boston Fund launched by Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Thomas Menino raises millions of dollars, experts predict victims’ medical costs will reach more than $9 million. This shocking number should be a wake-up call for all Americans.

Right now, the nation is rightly focused on the victims’ families. News reports have paid tribute to the six courageous teachers who died trying to save the children in their care. We have also seen touching accounts of the twenty young children who tragically lost their lives. Such attention to the victims, rare in so many crimes, sheds a spotlight on the impact of all homicides.

Declining crime rates over the past few decades have tempted us to forget how many individuals, families, and communities suffer the impact of crime every year. Yet the newly released Criminal Victimization 2011 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics is a wakeup call.

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), there are as many as 100,000 active missing persons cases in the United States at any given time. If you went solely by what you read in the media, you’d probably assume that most of these cases involve pretty white women.